http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
WHEN the Bush administration lands on the same side of an issue as the
New York Times editorial board, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and the Sierra
Club, it's time to clear out the cockpit. The administration's latest
junk science decision should cause Bush supporters to wonder: Is Al Gore
secretly manning the EPA?

This week, Bush's Environmental Protection Agency ordered General
Electric. Co. to fork over nearly half a billion dollars to dredge up
long-buried chemicals from the Hudson River. That's exactly what the
Clinton-Gore administration proposed in an 11th-hour decree last year -
despite heated opposition from local residents, flimsy evidence of harm
from the chemicals, probable injury to the natural habitat, and certain
damage to the economy.

This massive, federally-mandated cleanup will ruin the landscape and
cost precious jobs in blue-collar communities along the river, but it
will keep Beltway bureaucrats, lawyers, and eco-whiners employed for
decades. "This is a tremendous environmental victory," crowed Chris
Ballantyne of the Sierra Club. A Times editorial called EPA chief
Christie Todd Whitman's decision "admirable." Sen. Clinton declared
dredging "the right position, based on the science, to take."

The pro-dredgers claim that PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) embedded in
the river bottom pose a grave cancer risk and must be completely
eliminated. GE produced the chemicals in the manufacturing of electrical
transformers. The company legally disposed of its PCB-contaminated waste
into the Hudson from the 1940s until 1977, when the chemical was banned.

Since that time, the tainted sediment has been buried by layers and
layers of mud. Commerce and tourism on the banks are healthy; locals
swim freely and safely in the river; at least one town along the
targeted area taps the river for drinking water. A review of the current
scientific literature shows there is no credible evidence of increased
human cancer risk from exposure to trace levels of PCBs. Studies of
workers exposed to high PCB levels and studies of people who ate
PCB-contaminated fish showed no increased cancer risk when compared to
non-exposed populations.

Now, it's true that PCBs can cause cancerous tumors in animals - but
only after you inject enormous doses of the chemical into lab mice over
prolonged periods. "But what about the fish?" the enviros wail. What
about them? Thanks to sensible, minimally disruptive remediation efforts
over the past three decades, fish populations are thriving. That might
not be the case if the Clinton-Gore-Bush-Whitman plan goes through.

The proposed "cleanup" would involve dredging some 2.65 million cubic
yards of contaminated sediment from the Hudson -- 19 hours a day, six
days a week, six and a half months a year. At least two new hazardous
waste plants would be built on the river or its banks to process the
PCBs, and an estimated 45,000 tons of waste a day would be hauled out to
non-existent landfills (sure to be opposed by the same NIMBY enviros
that created this mess).

According to the grass-roots activist group CEASE, which has opposed
dredging for nearly a quarter-century, the EPA project would also
destroy 97 acres of prime aquatic habitat, killing or displacing all of
the creatures that live there, and destabilize or destroy 17 miles of
Hudson River shoreline.

Tim Havens, a small businessman who heads CEASE, told me this week he
was "overwhelmingly disappointed" in the Bush administration's decision
to carry out the Clinton-Gore plan. Havens blasted the EPA's arrogant
secrecy and shoddy science. Whitman has never visited the affected
counties and didn't even pay residents the courtesy of informing them of
the decision before telling the press.

"We're staunch Republicans in these communities -- working class
citizens, small businesspeople, farmers, homeowners, and housewives,"
Havens told me. "We're the backbone of the American economy, and we
thought Bush and his people would be a lot friendlier. They decided to
take the easy way out." Havens warns: "We'll remember in November" when
Bush ally and dredging proponent, GOP Gov. George Pataki, is up for
re-election.

On the science, economics, and politics of this dredging debacle, one
thing's crystal clear: The Bush administration has mucked up big
time.